Prosecutor Reveals Former Education Minister Nadiem Makarim's 'Trap' in Chromebook Project

A former SMP director at the Ministry of Education, Culture, Research and Technology (Kemendikbudristek) has testified that he felt set up by the position he obtained during the Chromebook laptop procurement project. The remarks were made during a trial for former Education and Culture Minister Nadiem Makarim at the Jakarta Pusat District Court on 5 March 2026. The Prosecutor, Roy Riady, confirmed during the hearing that policy pressure emanated directly from the top of the ministry. According to trial evidence, the sequence began on 5 June 2020—one day after Mulyatsah was appointed as SMP Director and Sri Wahyuningsih as SD Director—when a large Zoom meeting of Echelon I and II officials was held and Nadiem Makarim issued a specific instruction. “In essence, after congratulating Mulyatsah and Sri, Nadiem stressed the need to accelerate IT procurement using Chrome Device Management,” Roy told reporters in Jakarta on Friday, 6 March 2026. The urge to implement the minister’s directive led Mulyatsah to seek further guidance. That evening he went to the residence of Hamid Muhamad (then Acting Director General of PAUD and Dasmen) to consult what steps should be taken as a newly installed official. “Hamid Muhamad replied, simply carry out Minister Nadiem’s instruction using Chromebook,” Roy recounted. Following that instruction, Mulyatsah eventually signed a technical review that drastically changed the device specifications from a general operating system to ChromeOS. This change was subsequently incorporated into the Implementing Instructions (Juklak) for the Special Allocation Fund (DAK). However, problems emerged during the investigation at the prosecutor’s office. Investigators presented Permendikbud Number 11 of 2020 on Operational Guidelines for the Physical Regular DAK in Education. “In that formal regulation, the operating system specified is Windows, not ChromeOS. In front of investigators, Mulyatsah cried as he realised he had followed a verbal instruction that contradicted the written regulations drawn up by his minister,” Roy said. Throughout the proceedings, Mulyatsah could not hide his disappointment. He argued that as the senior leader, Nadiem should provide protection through policies aligned with the rules, rather than exposing subordinates to criminal liability. “The defendant (Mulyatsah) even told the court that Nadiem is not a teacher at Kemendikbud, but a businessman,” Roy added. The testimony is now a crucial point for the prosecutors as they probe how policy intervention contributed to state losses and who should bear ultimate legal responsibility in the IT procurement scandal. “For the prosecutors, this strongly strengthens the legal facts that have already emerged at trial about the abuse of power by NM as minister in agreeing with Google to use ChromeOS, which resulted in state losses,” Roy said.